Ghost Lion Crag the night so black that the darkness hums

The coldness was not unexpected; he watched as that regretful smile turned, saw how the bitterness had deeply taken root and spread into a blooming, grisly flower sporting bloodied thorns. It was unbecoming of the Arcturus he knew well, but perhaps it had always been there all along—he was his father’s son, after all. The barb he heaved at Dirge turned out to be no more than an uninhibited glancing blow; better it in words than by way of teeth. But his heated spin away to leave only encouraged Dirge to follow.

He would get his say, whether or not it was wanted or warranted.

“The only wolf Revui serves is himself,” he told the retreating Arcturus; it was a pointed statement, bereft of any mirth he had held. “He made it clear where his loyalties lay when he left you behind and sought to usurp you—he has no place in Moonspear, not now or ever.” There was nothing now that could exonerate Revui of his actions in Dirge’s eyes, nothing that would permit him a modicum of forgiveness.

“Perhaps such a thing would have been tolerable beneath your father’s rule, but it isn’t in mine. I won’t have him darken our hearth again, nor entertain his ambition with some sense of duty,” he went on, “but you still have a place there if you decide you want it. I didn’t come out here to fetch you or be a threat because you did what you decided is right. You’re entitled to your anger, your emotions, and what you do with them.”